Len Ochs, Ph.D., gave a presentation on his neurotherapy system, a form of biofeedback with an inactive participant, at the April 14, 1998 meeting of the East Bay Headache Support Group. The meeting was held in the Ball Auditorium at John Muir Medical Center, with 31 people in attendance.

Dr. Ochs began his presentation with a history of how he became involved in neurobiofeedback. He said that someone asked him to design a software system which would link the rate of flashing lights to a patient’s brainwaves. The idea was to get the patient’s brainwaves flashing. After developing this system, Dr. Ochs tried his flashing lights and goggles on two patients who were not successfully treated with traditional biofeedback therapy--and he discovered that it worked.

His patients include people who have problems with essential nervous system functioning, such as: explosiveness, anxiety, paralysis, clumsiness, fatigue, cognitive, processing, ability to organize, to   sequence, to remember, to be clear, Dr. Ochs has worked with thousands of people, many of whom also happened to have headaches. Those who were headache sufferers noticed their headaches were better, not as strong, and not as frequent. These patients had vascular headaches and muscle contraction headaches, and some felt pins and needles in their extremities.

This form of biofeedback doesn’t seem to have an effect on headaches caused by allergy, blood sugar, or due to a cold, but on vascular, cluster, migraine, and muscle tension headaches, it appears to have a beneficial effect.

His neurobiofeedback system consists of a pair of glasses with flashing lights built in—there are two flashing lights and two black specks for electromagnetic fields.

Energy fields are intimately tied to a person’s brain at a particular moment. Biofeedback tries to be accurate--but this is inaccurate. Brain waves direct the flashing of lights and the two are always linked.  Brain wave activity is very intense in people who have chronic problems. They have functional holes in the outer layer of brain. This flashing light therapy wakes up the outer layer of the brain, called the cerebral cortex, and one’s energy comes up. The patient becomes clearer about who they are physically, and their needs. They become more discriminate, and more discerning.

The bad news is that when people begin to feel more, they like it less. The good news is that when people recognize better what goes on inside them, they can control themselves better.

Things become easier—things become clearer for the patient.

Depression, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, fatigue, fibromyalgia are some conditions that Dr. Ochs has treated with his system of flashing lights.

He said in working with a patient with vascular headaches, he gives tiny doses so the body can get used to it. "This system is a tribute to how ignorant we are," Dr. Ochs said. When asked how it works, he always answers, "I don’t know." He explained that he just tries to nudge a body into doing something different (he just tickles the brain a little bit).

Who responds best to these flashing lights treatments? Dr. Ochs said he gets the best responses from people who have had something suddenly happen to them.

He recommends that patients go elsewhere first. Then, when they come to him he does an evaluation and takes a medical history and then does a Brain Map. This is the critical path, to tell him where to move the brain and the appropriate dosage of flashing lights. Some patients can only handle one second of therapy in the beginning, but over time their tolerance gets better and the sessions can last longer. Some have treatment sessions which last as long as twenty minutes. Dr. Ochs stressed that everybody is different, so every patient who comes to him is something of an experiment. The dosage will change as a person becomes more aware—and the sessions become briefer. He said, "the less we do, the better things get."

Dr. Ochs has some patients who present with single problems, but he said that patients with complicated problems pique his interest.

Dr. Ochs said that different sections of the brain are interconnected, like someone jumping on a trampoline: When one side goes down the other goes up. The brain is looking for a huge amount of electricity to drop.

He explained the "Coherence System," where brain sites are tied to each other in a network and they try to keep in a steady state. Therefore, if one part improves, another part of the brain gets worse. Homeostasis is the way a system balances itself out.

Dr. Ochs said that his neuotherapy system works really well for problems that were not helped by other forms of treatment, but that his system does poorly in treating some problems.

He stressed that it is important for you to know the medical community in which you live.

Dr. Ochs presented a slide which depicted brain wave activity, and mentioned Abnormal Delta and Theta: twenty minutes. Delta and Theta rise and fall, remaining high for a period longer than five minutes at a time. He said the higher the lines go up on the chart, the stronger the electrical activity in the brain, but the cortex comes back and inhibits electrical activity.

There is a relationship between using the glasses with flashing lights and changes in brain wave activity, but no one knows why.

At the end of Dr. Ochs formal presentation, he opened it up to questions from the support group members, as follows:

Q.: Does this neurosystem help patients with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) or ADHD, or dyslexia?

A.: Dr. Ochs answered that it works well for these conditions, but of course it depends on the individual. He then mentioned progressive diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Multiple Sclerosis, which are progressive diseases. The patient needs to understand that neurotherapy treatment will not stop the course of the disease. It optimizes brain resources and improves a person’s functioning, both consciously and unconsciously.

Q.: A member of the audience asked about the electromagnetic field.

A: Dr. Ochs answered the earth’s electromagnetic field is measured at 1/2 gauss (a unit of measurement of magnetism). There are 100 Teslas per gauss, and this therapy system uses magnetic fields which are a few billionths of a Tesla. Because the magnetic fields are so small, he asks the Lawrence Livermore Lab to measure them for him.

Q.: Once you effect improvement, is the change permanent?

A.: Dr. Ochs answered that it depended on the degree of complexity of the problem. If the problem is simple, the improvement stays, but when the brain is really complicated, it can get very complicated.

Q.: Have you ever treated someone who got worse after the treatment?

A.: Dr. Ochs stated that none of his patients have ever had a new symptom develop because of his treatment, but that they could have experienced an increase of a symptom. For instance, the headache can feel sharper, but the length of the headache gets shorter, and the length of time between the headaches tends to increase.

Q.: Where do you get referrals? Are you associated with HMO’s?

A.: Dr. Ochs said that he doesn’t know how he gets referrals. He said they have a lot of time on their hands in his office. People tend to laugh when they hear his system consists of flashing lights. He did say that he gets 65% of his business from the Internet. He gets bright, desperate people who will try anything by the time they come to him for help.

Q.|: Is your treatment covered by health insurance?

A.: Dr. Ochs answered, "If your policy covers biofeedback therapy, you’ll do well."

He said he doesn’t know what HMO’s would say about this therapy. A patient is charged $500 for the initial evaluation, and then the patient is told what needs to be done. Each treatment costs $90. Dr. Ochs mentioned there are seven to eight other practitioners of this neurotherapy in the Bay Area.

Q.: What is your therapy called?

A.: It is called the Flexyx Neurotherapy System. Dr. Ochs said that he was embarrassed at first to be working with this strange therapy, so he studied the process thoroughly. Formal studies of the successes and failures of this therapy system are in process, with a head injury study going on now. He also mentioned a fibromyalgia study which is expected to be made public in August 1998.

Q.: How does it work?

A.: Neurotherapy disrupts something that happens—it’s a deprogramming system. It is most effective with people with energy problems.

Q.: Will it work for a patient who has post-electrical shock trauma?

A.: No, but lightning strike victims have sought treatment. Most of Dr. Ochs’ patients suffer from fibromyalgia, head injury, or depression, and some have obsessive/compulsive disorder.

Q.: Have you seen any patients who came in specifically to ease their migraines?

A.: No, but patients have commented that their headaches were better after having treatments.

Q.: What is the youngest child you’ve treated?

A.: A three-year-old for "shaken baby syndrome." The child came in in a paralyzed, semi-comatose state, and experienced remarkable improvement. Dr. Ochs added that he has treated people for nine years now and has worked with people in coma, and with young children who couldn’t talk. He said the learning process for a therapist is lengthy. It usually takes two years of working with patients to get over being afraid of it.

Q.: What percentage of your patients couldn’t you help?

A.: Dr. Ochs answered that it depends on the group of patients. He believes he has helped 77% of the people who have come to him for treatment.